Simon Slangen

Compared to other standard calculators, Mac OS X users definitely can’t complain. The Calculator app that ships with Mac OS by default is diverse and incredibly powerful. However, you simply can’t build an app as general as a calculator to satisfy all possible user scenarios. For different users, different apps will always come out on top. Luckily, there’s no shortage of calculator alternatives in the Mac App Store.

For this article, we scoured the Mac App Store for the best calculator applications, each for a very different usage scenario. No matter how you’re used to crunching your numbers, there are a number of Calculator alternatives worth looking into.

Always on Top Calculator ($0.99)

One of the things that can be most irritating when you’re multitasking on Mac OS X is having to switch to and fro between Calculator and the app or apps you’re working in. Admittedly, this is a problem most calculator applications suffer from, those covered in this article included. The exception appears to be Always on Top Calculator, a cheap little calculator that—you may have guessed it – always stays on top.

You won’t be able to do all the same things as you would in a more powerful calculator application. Powers, roots and goniometric formulas are out of the question. However, Always on Top Calculator will suffice for standard number crunching and for the menial price of $0.99, you’ll never again lose your calculator application between the clutter of other applications.

Soulver ($19.99)

Soulver does the kind of number crunching you’d expect from expansive spreadsheets. However, contrary to those applications, Soulver is very fast and intuitive to use. If there’s any way to describe Soulver, it would be as a smart, contextual calculator. Instead of wrestling for control of intricate formula chains, Soulver allows you to use (something very close to) natural language.

With a $19.99 price tag, Soulver is the most expensive Calculator alternative we’ll cover in this round-up. Whether it’s worth that price depends on how often you have to crunch your numbers and how complicated the operations are. In any case, Soulver will speed up the way you work, allowing you to juggle different currencies and current stock prices with intuitive natural language constructions.

PCalc ($9.99)

Mac’s Calculator app includes a scientific mode, granting access to a wide variety of functions. Although the sheer amount of features packed into the Calculator app is impressive, it still hasn’t reached the same level of calculator goodness that is PCalc. Although the application is especially popular among fans of the RPN mode, PCalc is an all-round great scientific and programmer calculator.

At just under ten bucks, PCalc isn’t cheap either, but you’re buying a whole lot of functionality packed into a good-looking and user-friendly application. Even more impressive is the developer’s dedication to the application. The first version of PCalc was released over twenty years ago, in 1992. A special release of PCalc 2 was even shipped with Mac OS X in the United States and other countries in 2002. Looking at its track record, it’s easy to see why PCalc 3 does not disappoint.

Wolfram Alpha

You’ve no doubt already made acquaintance with Wolfram Alpha, a ‘smart’ computational knowledge engine. If not, it’s high time to learn about the true power of the Wolfram Alpha knowledge engine. More interesting uses can be found in Saikat’s article - 10 Search Terms To Put Wolfram Alpha To Good Use Everyday. Any one of these examples is reason enough to integrate Wolfram Alpha into your workflow as a computational knowledge calculator.

The default way to access Wolfram Alpha on your computer is through your browser. However, other apps allow for a more tight integration of Wolfram Alpha. My personal favorite in this area is Fluid, which allows you to turn any website into a standalone application. You can create a standard desktop application for free, or purchase the $4.99 premium version of Fluid to create a menu bar application.

To keep things nice and tidy I prefer to use Wolfram Alpha’s mobile website, as can be seen in the above screenshot.

Magic Calculator ($3.99)

Most calculators allow you to save some intermediate results to a spot in memory, remaining there for later perusal. For more complicated calculations, one such spot in memory quickly proves to be insufficient. Magic Calculator is an advanced calculator, with support for functions and variables. Save any number (or formula evaluation) to a chosen variable name and start juggling intermediate results like an expert.

More advanced usage is also possible. Magic Calculator lets you define functions yourself. Adding to this user-friendly function plotting and Magic Calculator proves itself to be a very powerful calculating tool. All of this for the decidedly low price of $3.99.

What calculator tools do you use in your workflow? Share your favorite applications (or websites) with the other readers in the comments section below the article!

The post 5 Interesting Calculator Alternatives For Mac OS X appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Crosswords are one of the world’s favorite pastimes. Sudoku has gained a lot of ground these past few years (although the real sudoku craze has largely calmed down) but this old time-waster isn’t going anywhere. It’s one of the big puzzle totems, and it’s here to stay.

But the world around is evolving. Paper sheets are making way for rows of pixels. The newspapers are slowly (but steadily) giving way to online news; on your computer and on your tablet. Just take a look at Steve Campbell’s iPad crossword app review titled 5 Amazing News Apps For The iPad. Even old and archived news papers are finding their way online.

As with newspapers and magazines, crosswords are going digital. Now, this isn’t a bad thing. Come to think of it, there are few better ways to enjoy crosswords. You might miss your coffee-stained, pencil-marked newspaper friends at first, but the iPad is a crossword wonder. Leave your eraser at home and carry a year’s worth of puzzle books wherever you go. And if you have to wait for a spell, you have your puzzles to hand, whether you’re queuing or commuting.

Below, you’ll find a round-up of some of the best crossword apps for the iPad.

Daily Quick Crossword Puzzles (Free)

This app is ideal for beginners to crossword puzzles or non-native English speakers. As you might suspect from its name (not all crosswords can be adequately described as ‘quick’) and its colourful interface, Daily Quick Crossword Puzzles is a light crossword app, offering small and relatively easy crossword puzzles.

The app can be downloaded for free, and although additional crossword packs can be acquired through in-app purchases, the daily crossword is free as well. Besides today’s crossword, you can freely play around with the past nine days worth of crosswords. However, once you’ve completed a crossword, you won’t be able to access it again.

NYTimes Crosswords (Free)

The New York Times crosswords are notoriously hard, but also among the most popular paper crosswords. The NYTimes Crosswords app is aimed at crossword veterans. After downloading the app for free, you can access today’s New York Times crossword. For more puzzle pleasure, or if you want o bridge a few days with a single crossword, you’ll have to unlock premium content via in-app purchases.

Puzzle packs of all difficulties can be purchased for around $2, with each pack providing a good 30 crosswords. Alternatively, you can subscribe to the New York Times crossroads, giving you access to the daily puzzles, as well as the archive containing over 4000 puzzles! A subscription will set you back a yearly $16.99, a biyearly $9.99 or a monthly $2.99. Don’t forget if you’re stuck, Saikat Basu’s list of 7 Quick Tools To Solve Crossword Puzzles Online may provide a helping hand.

Crosswords ($9.99)

Crosswords is arguably the best crossword app out there, but it’s also one of the most expensive. Acquiring the app will set you back an initial $9.99. This gives you access to an impressive amount of free daily crossword puzzles, including (but not limited to) those of Crossword Nation, NY Times Classic, Newsday, People, Premier Crosswords, Washington Post, Independent Concise and The Herald Cryptic.

If that isn’t enough, you can tune-in to several premium crossword providers, including American Values, Crooked Crosswords, New York Times and the Telegraph (Cryptic and Quick) by entering your premium subscription information in the app’s preferences.

The interface is a joy to use and although app-specific keyboards have a tendency to work only haphazardly, the Crosswords’ keyboard has a high-quality feel to it. With the Skip, Rebus (a 10-letter notepad) and Flip buttons mixed among the other keys, navigating the clues feels effortless. If you can afford to spend the $9.99 on a crossword app, Crossroads is the app to buy.

CRUX Crosswords ($4.99)

At $4.99, CRUX Crosswords costs half as much as the Crosswords app discussed above. That may still be twice as much as some other crossword apps, but CRUX Crosswords gives you great value for your money. It’s the premier alternative to the Crosswords app for crossword enthusiasts.

Like Crosswords, CRUX gets its puzzles from a wide variety of crossword sources. These include the NY Times Classic, People Magazine, Thinks.com, The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail, and Independent. Enter your premium subscription credentials in CRUX’s settings to gain access to crosswords from The American Values Club, Crooked Crosswords, New York Times and The Telegraph.

CRUX manages to provide an intuitive paper-like interface without losing any of the beautiful simplicity you’d expect from a quality puzzling app. Interesting features that give CRUX an additional edge over its competitors are its support for user profiles (great for a shared tablet in a puzzle loving home) and the different crossword views that make navigating clues a breeze. For instance, you can highlight related clues, as shown in the right-side screenshot.

Montessori Crosswords ($2.99) (For Kids)

This probably isn’t the crosswords app you’ll end up with, but Montessori Crosswords is a great app to introduce very small children to crossword-like word games, and even learn them how to spell. Each word is depicted by an icon. Press the word to hear its prononciation, and press the letters at the bottom of the screen to hear phonics.

Spelling is built up from simple words like sun and cat to harder words like thread. Over 300 hundred of these word-audio combinations are available through the app. Don’t worry, I’m not disgracing this list with a simple spelling app; the puzzles are also available in crossword form, with two or three words interwoven on the iPad’s screen. This won’t be the app you’ll use to pass your time, but it’s a great choice to pass on your puzzling legacy to the next generation. And when the kids grow more proficient, you can create your own crosswords to add to their curriculum.

Do you still make your crosswords with pencil and paper, or have you started going digital as well? Let us know your app choices — for crosswords and other types of puzzles — in the comments section below this article!

The post 5 Daily iPad Crossword Apps To Do While You Wait [iOS] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

The term DDoS whistles past whenever cyber-activism rears up its head en-masse. These kind of attacks make international headlines because of multiple reasons. The issues that jumpstart those DDoS attacks are often controversial or highly political. Since a large number of regular users are affected by the attacks, it’s an issue that plays with the people.

Perhaps most importantly, a lot of people don’t know what constitutes a DDoS attack. Despite its rising frequency, looking at the paper’s headlines, DDoS attacks can be anything from digital vandalism to fully-fledged cyber-terrorism.

So what does a DDoS, or Distributed Denial of Service attack entail? How does it work, and how does it affect the intended target and its users? These are important questions, and  this is what we’re going to be focusing on in this instance of MakeUseOf Explains.

Denial Of Service

Before we tackle the issue of DDoS, or Distributed Denial of Service attacks, let’s look at the larger group of Denial of Service (DoS) issues.

Denial of Service is a broad issue. Simply put, a website experiences DoS issues when it is no longer able to service its regular users. When too many people flock to Twitter, the Fail Whale pops up, indicating that the website has reached and passed maximum capacity. In essence, Twitter experiences DoS.

Most of the time, these issues are instigated without malicious intent. A large website links to a small website, which isn’t built for the same level of traffic.

A Denial of Service Attack, then, indicates malicious intent. The attacker spends effort trying to instigate DoS issues. The techniques used here vary wildly – a DoS attack refers to the intended result of the attack, not the way it is executed. Generally, by hogging the system’s resources, it can render the system unavailable to its regular users, ultimately even crashing the system and taking it down entirely.

Distributed (DDoS) Attacks

The difference between Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) and regular DoS attacks is the scope of the attack. Where a DoS is carried out by a single attacker using a single system, a Distributed attack is carried out across multiple attacking systems.

Voluntarily Participating Agents

Sometimes multiple attackers join up, each willingly participating in the attack. Software that’s used to stress-test systems, or software specifically designed to wreck havoc is installed on each system. For the attack to work, it needs to be coordinated. Coordinated through IRC chat rooms, forums, or even Twitter feeds, the attackers throw themselves en-masse on a single target, trying to flood it with activity to disrupt usage, or crash the system.

When PayPal, Visa and MasterCard started boycotting WikiLeaks near the end of 2010, WikiLeaks supporters carried out a coordinated DDoS, temporarily taking down the homepage of multiple websites. Similar attacks have targeted other banks and even national security agencies.

What’s important to remember here is that the website storefront is flooded and crashed, whereas the bank’s and security agencies’ internal networks are usually left untouched, as explained in XKCD comic 932, shown above.

Zombie Systems Or Botnets

A Distributed Denial of Service attack requires multiple attack systems. It doesn’t usually require multiple attackers. Often, large-scale attacks are not carried out through the attacker’s own computer, but through a large number of infected zombie systems. Attackers can abuse a zero day vulnerability and use a worm or a trojan horse to gain control over a large number of compromised systems. The attacker then uses these infected systems to mount an attack against its target. Infected systems used this way are often called bots or zombie systems. A collection of bots is called a botnet.

Although the website targeted by the DDoS attack is usually portrayed as the sole victim, users with infected systems that are part of the botnet are similarly affected. Not only are their computers used in illicit attacks, their computer’s and Internet connection’s resources are consumed by the botnet.

Attack Types

As mentioned before, a DDoS attack only states the intent of the attack – robbing a system of its resources and making it unable to perform its intended service. There are several ways to achieve this goal. The attacker can hog the system’s resources, or even push the system over the brink and make it crash. In severe cases, a Permanent Denial of Service (PDoS) attack, also known as phlashing, wreaks so much havoc on its target that hardware components need to be entirely replaced before being able to recommence normal operation.

We’ll take a look at two important attack methods. This list is by no means comprehensive. A bigger list can be found on Wikipedia’s DoS article.

ICMP Flood

The ICMP (or Internet Control Message Protocol, but that’s less important) is an integral part of the Internet Protocol. An ICMP flood attack is carried out by bombarding a network with network packages, using up resources and crashing it. One type of attack is a Ping Flood, a simple DoS attack where the attacker effectively overwhelms its target with ‘ping’ packets. The idea here is that the attacker’s bandwidth is larger than its target’s.

A Smurf attack is a smarter way of ICMP flooding. Some networks let network clients broadcast messages to all other clients by sending it to a single broadcast address. A Smurf attack targets this broadcast address and makes its packages look as if they came from within the target. The target broadcasts these packages to all network clients, effectively serving as an amplifier for the attack.

(S)SYN Flood

A (S)SYN Flood relies on the essential operating principles of network communication. During normal operations, a client starts communication by sending the server a TCP/SYN package, essentially telling the server it wishes to communicate. The server, upon receiving the package, creates a connection to communicate with the client and sends back acknowledgement and a reference to the communication channel.

The client sends back an acknowledgement in turn, and starts its communication with the server. However, if the client does not answer with that second acknowledgement, the server asumes it didn’t arrive properly (as happens reasonably often) and resends it.

A (S)SYN Flood abuses this mechanic by sending countless of TCP/SYN packages (each with a different, fake origination specified). Each package prompts the server to create a connection and keep sending acknowledgements. Before long, the server has used up its own resources with half-open connections. This principle is illustrated in the comic above, drawn and posted by Redditor verisimilarity.

As explained above, DDoS attacks are varied but have a singular purpose: (temporarily) keeping authentic users from using the target system. Does this agree with your initial ideas on DDoS attacks? Let us know in the comments section.

Image credit: Shutterstock

The post What Is a DDoS Attack? [MakeUseOf Explains] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Everyone has a story to tell. It’s not always a story in need of an audience, like Harry Potter or a Song of Ice and Fire. Sometimes a story just needs to be told. Your story.

You may want to continue the journal you started when you were just a kid, or keep a weekly account of your travels around the world. Maybe it’s thoughts, not events that need writing down. We won’t guess to the particulars of your story, but let me ask: how do you plan on penning it down?

An old-fashioned notebook works wonders, of course. I love me one of those leather-cover pockets. Ultimately, however, I’m mostly partial to a digital journal. Aaron Couch covered seven ways to keep a digital journal earlier this year. Day One is a good alternative for Mac OS X and iOS users, a great application aching to serve as your digital scribe, across platforms.

Day One (Mac $9.99 + iOS $4.99)

Day One is a journal or digital diary application that works across devices. You’ll find it on your Mac OS X computer, or on iOS; a universal application for the iPhone and iPad. Day One keeps a uniform design across these platforms and makes you feel at home regardless of where you’re jotting down your notes. Alas, you won’t find a Windows or Android client. Instead there’s an alternative diary for Android called Memoires which Saikat reviewed, last year.

Day One’s Mac OS X version retails at $9.99 in the Mac App Store, for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion and upwards. On the other hand, Day One for iOS has a price tag of $4.99 in the iTunes App Store. If you do purchase both, Day One will keep your data in sync across devices using Dropbox or iCloud magic. However, each client is standalone and can be used as your primary (even only) Day One client.

Look and Feel

One of the things that swayed my favor to Day One is its look and feel. There aren’t a lot of beautiful diary applications, another exception being Nancy Messieh’s suggestion Everyday.me for the iPhone. Rather than trying to mimic a ‘real’ journal, with post-its and fake coffee blots (putting the ‘ew’ back in GUI), Day One looks simple and stylish. Simple lines and simple fonts, yet great typography make Day One a pleasure on the eye. The design is slightly different across different platforms, but a theme clearly emerges.

Day One may look simple, but that just serves to make it pretty, not limited. You can add rich content to your journals; break up the text with pictures and more advanced markdown. There’s even an option to insert the current weather conditions from your iOS device, if you want.

In the Mac version, Day One displays a big date in the header. Any new entry you create on an empty day will include this elegant typographic contraption, giving every day the look of a new chapter in a book. A new entry on the same day will just be added below the first, with a new timestamp, as shown in the screenshot above. This makes Day One suited for most common diary types, from the short blurbs illustrated with a picture from your cellphone, painting a timeline of your day one frame at a time; or the long format plain-text journals that read more like a book than anything else.

Reminders and Menu Bar Entries

If you automatically reach for your journal in a quiet moment, I’m very happy for you. But a lot of us need some encouragement to keep going. It’s a little too easy to postpone adding an entry, and memory fails the best of us when enough time passes. For the forgetful and the procrastinators in the audience, Day One offers reminders, both on Mac OS X and iOS.

On iOS, you can choose between daily, weekly or monthly reminders. The Mac OS X version gives you a little more flexibility, allowing you to pick anything between 15 minutes and one week. In any case, you can choose the time you’d prefer to be reminded. Maybe at morning, over morning coffee, or during your break at work.

On Mac OS X, the Day One menu bar app provides an easy way to add a quick text-only entry. Although you can use the menu bar input method at any given time, it’s especially useful if the reminders guilt you into writing a small blurb.

Access And Search Your Diary or Journal

Not only is it important for a diary-keeping application to be pleasant as a writing tool. Revisiting those stories and memories should be easy and fun as well. Luckily, Day One succeeds here, offering multiple ways to peruse your own writings. The calendar view is best to get an overview. It’s a simple idea—a calendar setting apart days with entries—but it works well. The calendar lets you pick out a single day of entries; good if you’re looking for something specific.

Pressing the timeline icon (the three horizontal lines) gives you a more conventional diary layout. Entry excerpts from different days follow one another in a continuously scrolling view, per year. If that doesn’t fit your bill, you can still use One Day’s search functionality, singling out entries with specific keywords.

Conclusion

Either of the Day One clients — iOS or Mac OS X — can be used as a great standalone diary application, easily trumping bloated competitors. If you’re willing to pay twice, the applications will work in tandem, synchronising across Dropbox or iCloud. Either way, the stylish and clean interface just makes you want to keep writing. And if you forget, Day One has you covered.

Download: Day One for OS X ($9.99) / Day One for iOS ($4.99)

Do you keep a journal? Let us know how you keep track of your personal story in the comments section below!

The post Keep a Digital Diary with Day One for Mac OS X and iOS appeared first on MakeUseOf.

With the myriad of ways devices are, or can be connected, it still amazes me how hard it is to share small amounts of data between two different computers. The same goes for sharing files with your phone or tablet.

Don’t get me wrong. Not all file-sharing is cumbersome. Online file sharing sites help you move large data quickly and efficiently between computers half a world apart, as evident by Yaara’s compilation of the 6 quickest ways to share any file with anyone. In another article, Jackson showed how to set up a network share on your Mac to move data locally. However, none of these really fit the bill if you want to move small files locally and sporadically.

How often have you sent an email to yourself, simply to move a picture or document between computers? Often, the only obvious alternative is clear overkill, like setting up a temporary FTP server on your jailbroken iPad. For these kind of scenarios – moving small files quickly and efficiently – Mac OS X’s own AirDrop is the ideal tool for the job. Although AirDrop is a Mac OS X exclusive, meaning Windows computers and mobile devices are left out, applications similar to AirDrop allow you to share between those devices as well.

What Is AirDrop & How Do You Use It?

AirDrop was introduced with Mac OS X 10.7, Lion. Joining the other favorites in the Finder sidebar, this little chute allows you to easily share files locally between Mac’s, without prior set-up required. Simply click on the sidebar’s AirDrop icon to get started. Your Finder window transforms to a radar view, with your own user icon front and center.

Any user going into AirDrop joins this view, and is able to see the other AirDrop users. Sharing a file is now as easy as dragging it onto another user’s icon. As soon as the user accepts, the file starts transferring. This works for files of all sizes. Large movie files can be shared this way, but AirDrop can also be used to share small files almost instantly. You know, those files you’d usually email to yourself.

AirDrop Alternatives – Adding Compatibility

Although AirDrop works like a charm, there’s one problem that’s hard to miss. Being designed specifically for Mac OS X, it offers no help in transferring files between your other devices. Moving documents from Windows to Mac computers, for example, or sharing pictures between your phone and your computer.

It’s a good thing AirDrop appears to have inspired other developers. Third-party applications are implementing the same intuitive mechanism, adding compatibility with other devices. We’ll view two of these third-party AirDrop alternatives below. In time, both plan to offer compatibility with most other systems. Until then, one offers an additional Windows client, the other adding an iOS app to the mix.

Filedrop (Mac + Windows)

Filedrop works much like Airdrop, with the addition of a Windows client. The main difference is that, rather than residing in your Finder sidebar, Filedrop is a standalone application. Launching Filedrop shows a pop-up on your screen. Similar to Airdrop, if someone else opens Filedrop as well, they’ll become visible in the pop-up. From there on, you can share files between computers – also between a Mac and a Windows computer – by dragging and dropping them on the other user’s warning.

A note of warning. Rather than displaying your user icon, Filedrop users are marked by their wallpaper, as evident in the screenshot below. This is no problem for people like me, who think grass is pretty. However, if you’re more partial to ‘spicy’ or mature wallpapers, you should think twice before firing up Filedrop.

The makers of Filedrop have big plans ahead. An iOS and Android client are scheduled to join their Mac OS X and Windows counterparts ‘soon’. You can sign up to be notified on Filedrop’s website. Apart from sharing files to and from your mobile devices, these clients will add other, less Airdrop-y features. Once available, the mobile apps will let you stream a photo slideshow or music to your computer, or even use your cellphone as a wireless USB stick.

Instashare (Mac + iOS)

Another free alternative to Airdrop comes courtesy of Twomanshow. Instashare currently offers a Mac OS X and iOS client. The iOS app can be used on your iPhone and on your iPad. Although the iOS app is free, there are some ads, which can be removed by a one-time payment of $0.99.

Like the other applications covered in the article so far, different clients using Instashare are visible to one another. This way, you can share files to and from your iOS device, or between two Macs, through the magic of drag-and-drop. You can access your device’s photo roll through Instashare and select multiple pictures before sharing, making it incredibly easy and fast to wirelessly share pictures to a foreign computer.

Alas, because of the way iOS is designed, you can only share other files if you explicitly open them in Instashare. Most filetypes are supported, but this still means you’ll have to find an ‘open in…’ button elsewhere on your device. Luckily, iOS file manager iFile does wonders for jailbroken devices.

On the computer’s end, Instashare makes itself at home in your Mac menu bar. A useful Instashare feature lets you mark a device as trusted by selecting Always Allow on an incoming transfer prompt. This lets you download files to your computer wirelessly without having to accept them manually. However, doing this carelessly is not good for security.

How do you usually move files between devices? Share your experiences in the comments below the article!

The post Share Files Easily Between Computers With AirDrop & Two Similar Applications [Mac] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

The main reason most people take up pirating is, in my opinion, not out of spite. Nor is it because they refuse to reward the content creators. In the end it all comes down to usability. Pirating is often more user-friendly than paying for your content.

Regardless, people are willing to go to great lengths to access their content. And great lengths are indeed required, as content often doesn’t become available for a big part of the world until months after its initial release. More so, even though there are websites like Hulu and Netflix boasting the infrastructure to offer that media globally, they actively work to keep people out.

If you want to watch region-blocked videos on your iPhone or iPad, or entertain yourself with region-blocked apps, you’ll have to take matters into your own hands.

1. Proxy And VPN Services

To access region-blocked content, proxy and VPN (virtual private network) services work in largely a similar fashion. You’re unable to access the region-blocked content because the computer recognizes your computer (or rather, its IP address) as being outside the serviceable zone. So, instead of connecting directly to the server and giving away your location, you connect to an intermediary client that does reside in the serviceable zone.

In the case of a proxy, you connect through another client. All your browser activity is routed through that intermediary client. A VPN, on the other hand, denotes network. You connect to a network with serviceable clients and your browser activity is once again routed through an intermediary client. The big difference then is that a proxy is placed between your web browser and the server; it only reroutes the websites you visit through the intermediary client. A VPN reroutes all your network activity, including instant messaging, VoIP, and such. A connection over a VPN can also incorporate additional security measures to protect your communication (emphasizing the P in VPN).

1.1 Downsides

As Chris Hoffman discussed at length in his recent article VPNs Are Old: Better Ways to Access Region-Blocked Video, the main disadvantage of VPN’s and proxy servers is speed. Having to reroute your communications with the server through an intermediary client impacts the speed and latency of your internet connection. A chain is only as strong (or as fast) as its weakest link.

If you’re connecting over a high-quality proxy server or VPN, its speed should exceed that of your internet connection or, at the very least, the access speed of the region-blocked content. However, because of its nature, there’s always a chance that you’ll outpace the service’s speed, especially in the case of high-traffic utilities. Freely available web proxies can be useful in some cases, but usually can’t handle the traffic load that comes with streaming video.

1.2 Netshade (Proxy & VPN)

The VPN I’m fond of using is called Netshade. Like most VPNs, Netshade requires you to pay a usage fee. Although Netshade offers a 3-month Proxy+VPN or a 1 year Proxy plan for $29, the best value option is the year-long Proxy+VPN plan for $59. This will give you access to Netshade’s Proxy and VPN services, which are most easily managed through the free Mac and iOS applications.

To configure your iOS device for using Netshade, open the Preferences app. Under Wi-Fi, tap the blue arrow next to the currently selected network. At the very bottom of the next screen, under HTTP proxy, select Auto and enter “http://pac.netshade.net/“, without quotes.

Next, download and install the free Netshade app from the iTunes App Store. Tapping Device Setup will help you with the step above. If you’ve already added the proxy address to your settings, hit Launch Netshade. From here, you can already select a proxy server and start accessing region-blocked content. Netshade comes with premium proxies for several locales, including the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Germany and France. Optionally, user proxies can be added manually.

If you want to use Netshade’s VPN, you can automatically configure your iOS device from the VPN tab. This will install a VPN profile to your device. After installing this profile, you can select a locale in the VPN tab in your Preferences. Note that if you’re using the VPN, you don’t need to select a proxy in the Netshade iOS app.

1.3 Tunnelbear (Alternative VPN)

There are a lot of other VPN services besides Netshade. One such alternative is provided by Tunnelbear, which was reviewed in detail by Erez Zukerman. Compared with Netshade, Tunnelbear offers a more attractive pricing plan, but only a US and UK VPN. Contrary to Netshade, Tunnelbear also offers a Windows desktop client. Interestingly, Tunnelbear offers a free version with 500 MB transfer per month. You can earn an additional 1GB by tweeting about the service, each month. The monthly $9.99 (temporarily $4.99) plan offers unlimited data usage, whereas you can purchase 1 year’s worth of unlimited Tunnelbear for $60 (temporarily $49.99).

To install Tunnelbear, download the free app from the iTunes app store. Tunnelbear offers only VPN and no Proxy servers, so the setup process is slightly less convoluted. Simply install the iOS settings when prompted by Tunnelbear. Similar to Netshade, you can then select a locale in the Preferences VPN tab.

1.4 The Speed of Switching Regions

If you want to enjoy the American Hulu, as well as the UK BBC iPlayer, you’ll have to switch between regions. This can be done by selecting a different VPN profile in your iOS settings. Although this doesn’t take a lot of work, the work adds up when you have to switch between different regions more often.

2. DNS Tunneling Services

As Chris argued in his article on VPNs and DNS tunneling, the latter offers most of the same benefits, but with hardly any of the disadvantages of VPNs. Instead of rerouting all your traffic through an intermediary client, DNS tunneling works its magic to let you connect directly to the target server. Better yet, DNS tunneling can differentiate between different websites, meaning you can keep browsing regular websites as usual. This means you don’t have to toggle the service on and off every time you want to access region-blocked content.

2.1 UnoTelly’s UnoDNS

One of the DNS tunneling services that comes most highly recommended is UnoTelly’s UnoDNS. Pricing starts at $3.99 monthly. For $4.99 monthly, UnoDNS will even throw in bonus US and UK VPN’s, so you can have the best of both worlds. UnoDNS supports mosts region-blocked content, including Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Instant Video, but also websites from Swiss and Norse locales. If you visit one of these website, UnoDNS will automatically help you pose as coming from the right region. This way you can have Netflix open in one tab and BBC iPlayer in another!

To set up UnoDNS, go to the Wi-Fi section of your iOS preferences and tap on the blue arrow next to the currently selected internet connection. Write down your current preferences to restore them later, or take a screenshot. Select the closest DNS server from UnoDNS’ Global DNS Clusters page and copy over the IP address in the DNS field.

Finally, fire up your web browser and head to http://unotelly.com/quickstart2/ to view a status report and finish configuring the service. If this is your first time using the service on this IP address, you’ll have to sign in with your UnoTelly account. Once you’re done, there should be a green bar topping the page.

3. Downloading Regional Apps

If you want to use locale-specific apps like Hulu and Netflix in an unsupported region, the above will certainly help. However, all that won’t do you much good unless you’re able to download the apps in question. To do this, you’ll have to create a new iTunes account from the country of the app. Luckily for us, you can download apps with a US iTunes account, log back into your own country’s account and keep using the US apps.

Jeffry Thurana wrote about How To Create A US iTunes Account (& Access US-Only Contents) Without A Credit Card. Of course, without a credit card, you’ll only be able to download free apps. To download paid apps, you’ll need to add a payment method. For some countries you can create a virtual credit card, which you then charge with your real credit card. EntroPay is a virtual US Visa service which comes suggested by UnoTelly’s UnoDNS.

What region locked videos are blocked for you, and which service will you use to get to it? Share your experiences in the comments section below the article!

Intro image: Shutterstock

The post How to Access Region Locked Video on Your iPad or iPhone [iOS] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

The iPad (or even the iPhone) is a great device to enjoy apps and video while you’re on the road, or in bed. In fact, you can enjoy your media wherever you are. However, sitting a small distance from your big television set, some of this media might be wasted on the small screen of your iOS device.

Instead, you could switch to your computer, or a media center hooked up to your TV. But if you want to enjoy the content from your iPhone or iPad, there’s a third option. You could display the image of your iOS device to your television set. This instantly makes any TV into a smart TV, allowing for Hulu, Netflix, and even apps that do not have a desktop alternative.

There are a number of ways to hook up your iOS device to the television screen; both wired and wireless.

1. Use A Video Adapter

The simplest solution to get your iPhone’s or iPad’s video to show on your television screen is to use a hardware adapter. Apple, and other third-party hardware manufacturers, provide adapters to convert Apple’s proprietary 30-pin, or the new Lightning Connector connector to another type of video plug.

Check the back of your television set, or its manual to find out which types of plugs are supported and read Video Cables Explained: Difference between VGA, DVI & HDMI to learn more about the differences between these video connectors.

Once you’ve found the right connection, likely HDMI or RCA, check out your local hardware store or the online Apple Store to find a connector. You can try online marketplaces like eBay too and save a big part of the money, but there’s no guarantee the connector will be recognised by your iOS device.

All generation iOS devices support Video Out, which is a framework that lets an app explicitly output video to connected AV adapters. You can expect Video Out to work with most video and photo apps, but it probably won’t be incorporated into your mail or calendar application.

Later generation iOS devices (iPhone 4S, iPad 2 and later devices) also support Video Mirroring. Here, you can mirror your entire iPhone or iPad screen to your television set, unless the app explicitly uses the video out feature to show a different image configuration.

View this Apple Support article for more compatibility information.

(Cydia) DisplayOut

Apple’s limiting of video mirroring is 80% marketing move. If you’ve jailbroken you’re device, you can use the $2.99 Cydia app DisplayOut to introduce the video mirroring functionality to all iPhones and iPads, regardless of generation and connector type (although, admittedly, HDMI adapters work better than component or composite cables).

Cydia is available through the BigBoss repo. This repo should have been added to Cydia by default. If nothing shows up on your search results, you can still add the BigBoss repo through Manage -> Sources -> More Package Sources.

(Cydia) Resupported 4.0+

Another Cydia tweak that’ll help you with your video output is Resupported 4.0+. As mentioned earlier on, not all AV adaptor cables are recognised by every iOS device. For example, iPod cables or usually unsupported by iPhones and iPads, even if the connector is essentially the same. Although Resupported 4.0+ provides no guarantee, it all but says to make every iOS AV cable supported again.

This functionality is available for $3.99 through the Cydia store, which is a lot less than you’ll save buying an “unsupported” AV connector. Better yet, you can try the product for free, for ten full days.

If you haven’t already jailbroken your iPhone or iPad, these two apps might be sufficient reason to do so. Read MakeUseOf’s guide, How To Jailbreak Your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad by Lachlan Roy, to get started.

2. Stream Over AirPlay To The Apple TV

If you have an Apple TV at home, this process gets a lot less convoluted. Instead of fumbling around with AV connectors, you can simply stream your iPhone or iPad’s image to the Apple TV. The third generation of Apple even supports 1080p video! If that doesn’t tell mean much to you, read our write-up on display resolutions.

Supported applications, like Apple’s own Video app, or in fact any web video, will show an AirPlay icon when there’s an Apple TV connected to your local network. Pressing the AirPlay icon and selecting your Apple TV will start wirelessly streaming your screen. Learn more about AirPlay from What’s AirPlay, And How To Use It In Mac OS X Mountain Lion.

If you want to mirror your iOS device’s screen from unsupported apps, there’s usually not much you can do. However, if you’ve jailbroken your device, the Cydia DisplayOut app discussed above also lets you mirror your device’s screen to the Apple TV on iOS 5+.

3. Stream Over AirPlay To Your Computer

Mirroring your iPhone or iPad’s screen to your television set might be a new obstacle, but chances are you’ve already found a way to connect your computer to your TV. In fact, most laptop nowadays come with HDMI ports, as do most new TV’s. This makes hooking up your computer to your TV easier than ever before.

If you’ve already connected your computer to your TV, you could simply project your iOS device’s screen to your computer and get the same results. This adds an additional device in the chain, but it may keep you from needlessly buying additional hardware.

AirServer transforms your Mac or PC into an AirPlay receiver. Instead of shelling out over a hundred bucks to purchase an Apple TV, you can purchase AirServer for $14.99 to transform your computer into one. With AirServer installed, you can stream video from your iPad to your computer, full-screen. In fact, you can even mirror multiple devices side-by-side!

How do you go about mirroring iOS to your television set? Do you prefer cables or wireless? Let us know in the comments section below the article!

Image credit: Television via Shutterstock

The post How To Mirror The iPhone Or iPad To Your TV [iOS] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

AirPlay, in my humble opinion, is one of the biggest advantages added to Mac OS X in recent times. In case you haven’t heard, AirPlay is a system that allows you to stream video and audio between AirPlay-enabled Apple devices. Like streaming video from the iPad YouTube app to the Apple TV.

More generally, AirPlay means streaming audio and video to an Apple TV, or only audio to an Apple Airport. For more information on AirPlay, read my previous post - What’s AirPlay, And How To Use It In Mac OS X Mountain Lion.

Although AirPlay works great in a lot of situations, it isn’t a perfect system. Perhaps most importantly, Apple’s AirPlay system is proprietary, meaning it’s only officially implemented by Apple and thus only available on Mac OS X and iOS devices, leaving a lot of Windows-Apple crossover users out in the cold.

Secondly, AirPlay mirroring – which is the act of streaming the content’s of your computer display to an Apple TV – is only available on recent Apple hardware. For older Mac’s, the AirPlay mirroring icon simply doesn’t show up in the Mac OS X menu bar. For a complete list of supported computers, take a look at this Apple support article.

Luckily, both of these problems are solved by AirParrot.

AirParrot (USD 9.99)

AirParrot is a third-party application (that is, not affiliated with Apple) that unofficially implements the AirPlay protocol. To put it simply, AirParrot provides an alternative implementation of AirPlay mirroring. Thanks to AirParrot, you can mirror your computer’s display to an Apple TV, whether you’re using Mac OS X or Windows. Alas, if you’re on Linux, you’re limited to streaming your audio using AirTunes.

Even Mac computers with unsupported hardware sets can use AirPlay mirroring this way. All of this for the reasonable price of $10.

Of course, you shouldn’t expect the same performance from AirParrot. If you have a Mac OS X computer with supported hardware, you should just use the built-in AirPlay mirroring functionality. However, for those two groups for which AirPlay mirroring was previously out of reach, AirParrot is a godsend.

Installation & Display Configuration

AirParrot is available for both Mac OS X and Windows computers, and can be bought for $10 from the AirParrot website. AirParrot seems slightly more focused on their Mac OS X version, which might receive a new feature slightly faster than the Windows version. That being said, the Mac OS X and Windows clients both work largely the same.

On your Mac, installing AirParrot adds a presence to your Mac OS X menu bar. On Windows, the AirParrot icon is added to your task bar instead. Similar to the official AirPlay mirroring menu, pressing the icon let’s you select a compatible Apple TV device. Contrary, to the official menu, this drop-down menu offers more display options.

Aside from mirroring your display – which is the default option – you can also have your computer consider the Apple TV-connected display as an additional screen, and extend your display. Selecting this option adds a display to your computer’s display management preferences, where you can further customize how your computer should handle the extra screen.

AirParrot’s third display option is even more interesting, although this feature is only available using AirParrot’s Mac OS X client. Instead of mirroring or extending your computer’s display, you can ask AirParrot to display only one specific app through your Apple TV. Again using AirParrot’s drop-down menu, simply select a windowed application that’s currently open to stream it to your Apple TV.

The Contrast With AirPlay Mirroring

For most people desperately wanting to use AirPlay mirroring with unsupported hardware, AirParrot is a knight in shining armour. Alas, even AirParrot is not perfect, and there are some stark differences between using AirParrot on unsupported hardware and using the official AirPlay technology on supported hardware.

Apple declared the older hardware incompatible for a reason. More recent computers include a chip on the GPU that’s able to transcode the display output to H.264 in real-time. If you mirror a display using AirPlay mirroring, you’ll still face a buffering delay. However, there’s hardly any added delay for transcoding the video. On other computers, there is. Video needs to be transcoded on the user level, meaning it’s subjected to the intricacies of processor and memory scheduling. Here, the transcoding delay is not constant.

This may sound complicated, but the consequences are rather simple – the video transcoding delay and thus the frame rate are unreliable. Most of the time, this isn’t much of a bother. The AirParrot preferences give you tighter control over video quality and frame rate. AirParrot is great if you want to surf on the web, or show a picture slideshow. However, you won’t be able to comfortably stream long videos to your Apple TV.

How do you use AirPlay in your home? Tell us about your set-up in the comments section below the article!

The post AirParrot Brings AirPlay Mirroring To Windows & Older Macs appeared first on MakeUseOf.

With Spotify and similar music-streaming services on the rise, the run-of-the-mill stereo installation is starting to look more and more inadequate. Hook up your laptop or desktop computer — or even your phone — to your sound system, and you’ll have a stereo installation that’ll rarely leave you wanting more.

The main problem with this setup is that if you’re sitting with friends, computer-stereo-hybrid blasting away at the other side of the room, it’s often a chore to play DJ. If you don’t enjoy the benefits of AirPlay, queueing a new album on that computer requires just as much work as it would on a conventional stereo.

That is, unless you start involving your mobile devices and an app like Spot Remote for iOS.

Spot Remote ($2.99)

Spot Remote is a small application for your iPhone and iPad that allows you to remotely control your Spotify-equipped Mac OS X computer. Instead of crossing the room to access your computer, Spot Remote allows you to remotely manage Spotify’s music; skipping songs, queueing artists and even creating a Spotify radio station.

In fact, Spot Remote looks very similar to the Spotify app for the iPhone or iPad. The main difference being that, instead of controlling the music that’s coming from your mobile device’s speakers, you’re playing DJ with the Spotify client hosted on your Mac. You may not have access to all the same features you have on your computer, but there’s an unmistakable benefit to being able to control a central music installation, no matter which device you hold in your hand.

Installation and Setup

Like many of the applications that make your computer and iOS devices play nice, Spot Remote is comprised of two parts; a desktop client and an iOS app. To use Spot Remote, you’ll need to install both. The desktop client can be downloaded from the website without charge. This also means there’s no limit to the number of computers you can control with the Spot Remote app on your iOS device.

The iOS Spot Remote app will only set you back $2.99 for a universal app which works on both the iPhone and iPad, so if you buy one, you can use it on both devices. After installing the desktop client, your computer should show up in the Spot Remote app.

If your iPad is unable to detect your computer, make sure your iPad and computer are on the same network and the Spot Remote desktop client is running. Restart the Spotify desktop client and go to Settings > Show available servers in the Spot Remote iOS app.

Search

As mentioned above, the Spot Remote iOS app feels mighty similar to the Spotify iOS app. There’s some overlap in functionality, too. You can search Spotify’s database for tracks, artists and albums as you would in the Spotify app. Select a song or album to play it on your connected Mac OS X computer.

Although the search functionality in Spot Remote for the iPad works like a charm, sometimes the interface seems to be designed primarily for the iPhone and only starts to look good once you’ve browsed through several tabs, as shown in the screenshot above.

Control

Although queueing music will often involve using the Spot Remote’s search, you can navigate the Spotify library a number of ways. Any playlists you’ve created in Spotify or playlists you’ve found through ShareMyPlaylists are also accessible through Spot Remote. The top lists you see when you open Spotify — either music recommended for you specifically or music that’s popular in your region — can also be found in Spot Remote’s sidebar.

More advanced features are available through Spot Remote’s pop-up menu. Press and hold any song in the search results or one of your playlists to show a pop-up context menu, as shown below. Similar to the Spotify application, here you can star and queue a song, add it to a playlist or even start a radio station.

In the end, if you’re not looking for music, you’ll spend most of your time in the Now Playing screen of Spot Remote. This screen, shown in the screenshot above, can be opened by pressing the full-screen arrows in the lower left corner of the Spot Remote application. This simple, yet elegant screen allows you to skip through songs and toggle different play modes.

More importantly, even if you can’t access the wide variety of Spotify apps, if you use one of these to start start a playlist through Spotify’s fully featured desktop client, you can still view and skip songs in Spot Remote’s now playing screen.

Download: Spot Remote ($2.99) at the App Store

How do you control your Spotify music installation? Give us a sneak peek of your Spotify workflow, and tell us about your tips and tricks in the comments section below the article!

The post Control Spotify on Your Mac Using Spot Remote [iOS] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

One of the clumsiest things to do on Mac OS X is Windows management. I don’t usually look back on my Windows years with longing, but window management has been integrated far less sloppier on Windows 7 than it has on Mac OS X. The buttons at the top of the screen sometimes seem to act illogically. But worse, moving and resizing windows has to be done manually using the mouse. This may seem like a trivial task, but believe me, it adds up.

Mac OS X incorporates some great features to work with a multitude of windows and multitask. Just look at the multitasking capabilities of Mission Control. However, actually moving and resizing leaves much to be wanted. Luckily, there are some great applications available to extend Mac OS X and add the features that are lacking.

In the past, we already took a look at window management with Afloat. However, Moom does perhaps an even better job. And for all its utility, it costs you just $10.

Manage Mac Windows With Moom

Moom is a great Mac OS X utility that takes care of everything relating to Mac window management. Where I used to have multiple applications to handle the multiple facets of window management, Moom is an all-in-one utility. It takes care of things such as snapping your computer’s windows to the edge of your screen, and automatically moving and resizing windows to preset sizes.

We’ll discuss each of these in more detail below. For now, the important thing to note is that you can enable or disable any of these aspects in Moom’s preferences.

You can run Moom a couple of different ways. Because most of Moom’s business either happens in the background or with popovers, I’d suggest running Moom as a faceless application. This essentially means that Moom won’t take up valuable screen real estate with a dock or menu bar icon. You can configure this in Moom’s settings, at the very bottom of the General pane.

The only drawback here is that you’ll have to relaunch Moom while it’s already running if you want to access the settings. Since you’ll only want to configure Moom at the very beginning after you’ve installed the application, this is a minor issue.

Snapping To Edges & Corners

By enabling Moom’s ability to snap your computer’s windows to edges and corners, your Mac OS X installation will start behaving similar to Windows 7 (or the desktop view in Windows 8). If you drag a window to the edge or corner of your screen, Moom will snap the window to a predefined part of the screen.

Before you release the mouse after dragging a window to the edge of your screen, Moom will show a blue outline of how your window will look like after snapping.

Each side of your screen and the corners in between responds differently to a dragged window. You can configure this behavior in Moom’s preferences, under Mouse -> Snap to Edges and Corners.

Zoom Button

We previously wrote about how to make the Mac OS X zoom button behave more like on Windows. Moom offers an even better deal. As an alternative to snapping your windows to the edges of your screen, Moom provides more fine-grained move and zoom control by extending the capabilities of the green zoom button at the top of Mac OS X windows.

Hovering over the green zoom button will show a small pop-over. Here, you’ll find a button to snap to the standard parts of your screen, similar to snapping the window by dragging it to the edge of your screen. You can enable the Move & Zoom grid to show below these buttons. The Move & Zoom grid shows you the approximate size and location of the currently selected window and allows you to move and resize it by selecting part of the Move & Zoom grid.

Keyboard Control

The third major interface to manage your computer’s windows uses your keyboard. This is enabled by specifying a hot key in Moom’s keyboard preferences. Pressing the hot key gives you control over the currently selected window with your keyboard, allowing you to move, zoom, grow and shrink the window as wanted.

By default, only Move and Move & Zoom to Half Screen are enabled in Moom’s preferences for keyboard control. More of these controls can be enabled as needed in Moom’s preferences. You can also ask Moom to show a cheat sheet, reminding you with a pop-up of the relevant keyboard shortcuts whenever you hit Moom’s hot key.

Custom Control

In the Custom preferences pane, you can create your own custom controls, by specifying the kind of operation you want to perform on your window and filling in the details. For example, you can move and resize a window to a specific part of the screen, or simply add a size and anchor point to resize it in place.

These custom controls can be triggered by using a predefined shortcut, but can also be added the the Moom’s zoom button controls by enabling this in the Moom’s Mouse preferences pane.

Do you keep your computer’s windows on a tight leash? What tools do you personally use to help you with this? Let us know in the comments section below the article!

The post Manage Your Mac Windows Efficiently With Moom appeared first on MakeUseOf.

A more portable laptop (in my case, an ultrabook) comes with all kinds of problems for the music enthusiast. The sound quality of Apple’s built-in speakers is better than most, and I love iTunes’ capabilities for organising my media library. However, anything resembling a decent music collection takes up most – if not all – of the available hard drive space. Without a gigantic hard drive, keeping a local music library simply isn’t feasible.

The obvious alternative would be Spotify. However, I don’t very often go on a journey of musical discovery from within Spotify and it feels strange to pay a monthly fee to play what is essentially the same music library over and over again.

CloudPlay ($ 4.99)

CloudPlay is a nifty little application that resides in your Mac OS X menu bar. To use it, just click on the little cloud icon in your menu bar and start searching for music that fits your mood. CloudPlay solves the problems mentioned earlier by pulling its music from the cloud. However, unlike other popular Cloud players like Spotify and Grooveshark CloudPlay doesn’t let you tune in to its own super sized music database. Instead, CloudPlay looks for the tracks using other third-party services, like YouTube and SoundCloud.

This both has its advantages and its disadvantages. Unlike Spotify and Grooveshark, CloudPlay won’t ask for a monthly fee. After a single payment of $4.99 the application is yours and you won’t be charged again. However, some of CloudPlay’s procurement of music may be in a grey zone. If a music video is deleted from YouTube due to a DMCA complaint, it will also disappear from SoundCloud.

Perhaps the biggest single drawback to SoundCloud is its fragmented search. With Spotify, you search for a song or artist and receive a simple response to your query. With CloudPlay, a lot of different users may have uploaded the same music video, crowding your search results. But all in all, this is a small price to pay for free access to a ridiculous amount of music.

Media Sources

CloudPlay tunes in to multiple services to provide you with music. First and foremost, CloudPlay looks at your iTunes library. Any song you already have on your computer will also show up in CloudPlay’s search result. This ensures you’ll get your music with the best audio quality possible. This is especially great news if you’ve spent a lot of time painstakingly organising your iTunes music library.

If CloudPlay can’t find the track in your iTunes library, it’ll start looking online. Online sources include YouTube, SoundCloud, Exfm, UndergroundMusic, Jamendo and Official.fm. If you aren’t able to find the song you’re looking for through YouTube, CloudPlay’s combination of professional, indie and all-round music services provide a great fallback.

You can toggle any of these sources on or off in SoundCloud’s preference to get a more fine grained control of your search results.

Playlists

Just like most other music players, CloudPlay gives you the ability to create a playlist of your favourite songs. To add a song to a playlist, right-click it in CloudPlay and select or create a new playlist. These playlists are visible in CloudPlay by pressing the drop-down menu in the main application screen. This is especially useful because you can add tracks from across different music sources to a single playlist.

CloudPlay can also tune in to other playlists. Any playlists you have in your iTunes library are also accessible through CloudPlay’s drop-down menu. Better yet, you can access your favourites and playlists that you previously created on your YouTube account, or browse preexisting playlists on Console.fm and Jamendo.

However, if you want to stream music from your YouTube playlists offline, you’ll have to use other tools to download your YouTube playlists.

Online Radio

A third and final source of music for CloudPlay is in Online Radio. There is a rich offering of online radio stations; thousands upon thousands of them. Angela Alcorn even wrote about how to create your own online radio station. CloudPlay searches these radio stations to give you additional search results, besides the aforementioned sources. Similar to tracks that are found using other music services, you can save radio stations that you like to your playlists, adding dynamic content to your song collections.

What application or service do you use to listen to music on your computer. Do you still keep all your albums locally, or have you perhaps subscribed to a cloud music service. Let us know in the comments section below the article!

The post Stream Music From Your Menu Bar With CloudPlay [Mac] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Over the years, I’ve tried my hand at a number of media center software alternatives. Some people swear by XBMC, or swore by Boxee before it stopped developing the Boxee desktop application. In the end, I always come back to Plex.

Since our guide on How To Build A Great Media Center PC was written, Plex has matured a lot. Now, it’s not only on of the most eye-catching media center applications, it’s a easy to use solution I would recommend to most people looking to build a media center.

Plex is a dual media solution by default. There’s not one, but two Plex applications – Plex Media Server and Plex Media Center. The server application handles your media, and the Plex Media Center (or client) is used to enjoy it. If both are installed on the same computer, this makes for no remarkable story. However, by separating the two, it’s incredibly easy to access your Plex library on other computers, or even other networks.

Today, I’ll show you how to enjoy Plex on a remote computer.

1. Create a myPlex Account

myPlex is one of the most important parts of this tutorial. It’s a free ‘Plex account’ that bridges your different instances of the Plex server and client applications. These days, you’ll be asked to create a myPlex account upon installing Plex.

If you haven’t already, you can create a new myPlex account here.

2. Sign Into myPlex On Your Plex Media Server

You’ll have to make sure you’re logged into your myPlex account on your Plex Media Server. Again, this usually happens during the installation process, but you can do this manually as well.

Launch the interface for your instance of Plex Media Server by clicking the icon, or by browsing to 127.0.0.1:32400/web on your media center PC. In the settings, go to myPlex and sign into your account.

3. Publish Your Plex Media Server

Still in the myPlex settings of your Plex Media Server, choose to publish your media center. If this goes without a hitch, you can skip the rest of this step, but you’ll likely be faced with an error. This is because you need to configure your router to send all traffic to port 32400 on your Internet connection to the computer on which you’ve installed the Plex Media Server. In other words, port forwarding.

In essence, you’ll need to forward port 32400 (TCP and UDP) to the local IP address of the computer on which you’ve installed the Plex Media Server. The specific steps to forward a port to your computer depend on the type of your router. James wrote up a very good primer on port forwarding and how it can help you, which also includes useful links that may help you forward the port. You’ll also need to use a static IP address for your media server computer. You can learn more about static IP addresses and how to get one.

If you’ve never before forwarded a port, this is the most intimidating step of the article. However, the articles linked above should guide you in the process. If you have a special router provided by your ISP, try contacting them for help on the subject.

4. Connect With The Plex Media Center Client

Next, you’ll want to use the Plex Media Center client to connect to the Plex Media Server application. The main advantage of separating server and client applications is that you can use as many instances of the media center client as you want.

For example, I have one instance installed on my laptop, and one on an old computer connected to my TV. This way, I can access my media on both without hassle.

Fire up the Plex client application and go to Preferences -> System. Here you can log in with your myPlex credentials.

Signing in to myPlex has a dual purpose. First, it authenticates access to your media files. Second, it allows the media center computer to find the media server computer without having to specify the IP address. In fact, you can even access your media files when you’re on another network, although this will count towards your ISP’s upload and download quota.

After logging in with myPlex, your media files should appear in the Plex client home screen. If not, you can still add the IP address to your media server computer manually, via Settings -> Network.

5. Connect With Your Browser Using Plex/Web

The preferable way to access your media from another computer is probably through the Plex client application. However, using the recently added Plex/Web feature you can even access your media from a web browser!

To do so, head to the myPlex website, select a media server and press Plex/Web in the sidebar. Alternatively, you can connect directly through your media server computer’s global IP address. Just point your browser to GLOBALIP:32400/web, where GLOBALIP needs to be replaced by your global IP address. After logging in with your myPlex credentials, you can access and start streaming your media to your browser.

What does your media center set-up look like? Let us know in the comments section below the article.

The post How To Access Your Plex Library From A Remote Computer appeared first on MakeUseOf.

You’re having family or friends over and want to show off the pictures of that trip you made last year. Those pictures you haven’t already shared on Facebook (and aren’t likely to) are waiting patiently on your computer until you can gather around your guests and share the memories you made.

The most straightforward way to handle this would be to show a slideshow on your computer, but unless you happen to have a ridiculously large laptop screen, this isn’t the way to go. Pushed together, craning your neck to catch half a picture, half screen glare, is not the way to enjoy pictures. If you have an Apple TV, you won’t have to go through this ordeal. Instead of watching picture slideshows on your computer, you can display them right on your television.

There are a couple of ways to access your iPhoto slideshows and pictures on your Apple TV. We’ll take a closer look at the three of them.

0. Organize your Photos in iPhoto

In the following steps, we’ll assume you’ve already organised your photos in iPhoto, Apple’s powerful photo library manager. If you haven’t done so already, it’s very easy to get started. Just create an album (either by right-clicking the sidebar or by going through the File menu) and drag and drop your photos on the album icon. This will populate your first album with the pictures you just dragged into it.

1. Share Pictures Through iTunes’ Home Sharing

iTunes has a feature called Home Sharing, which allows other computers on your local network to access (some of) your media. Among other things, this enables you to enjoy your music on another computer, or share pictures across your local network. Because the Apple TV picks up on Home Sharing, it’s the ideal way to get your pictures on the big screen.

First, make sure you’ve enabled Home Sharing, by opening iTunes and selecting File -> Home Sharing -> Turn on Home Sharing. Enter your Apple ID and password to enable Home Sharing. If (against odds) you don’t have an Apple ID yet, you can make one now.

By default, only music is shared through Home Sharing. To share pictures from iPhoto, select File -> Home Sharing -> Choose Photos to Share with Apple TV. Here you can choose to share your entire iPhoto Library, or a specific subset of it. I shared only the album which contained the photos for my iPhoto slideshow, but you can also filter on events and even faces. A closer look at Home Sharing and how it compares to similar Mac OS X features was previously covered by Bakari Chavanu for MakeUseOf.

If you log with the same Apple ID on your Apple TV, it will pick up the computer on which you enabled Home Sharing. Selecting the ‘Computers’ button on your Apple TV home screen will show you your computer’s library, and the files shared therein. Select the Photos subdirectory and the album containing the pictures of your slideshow. Through the top right corner of your screen, you can start the slideshow. Before the pictures start rolling off the screen, you’ll even be able to select a slideshow theme and music.

2. Export an iPhoto Slideshow to the Apple TV

If you’ve already created a slideshow in iPhoto, or simply prefer the superior capabilities of the application, there’s no need to try to recreate this slideshow on the Apple TV. Instead, it’s relatively easy to export an existing slideshow from iPhoto to your Apple TV.

Creating a new slideshow in iPhoto is as easy as selecting the pictures you want to include, right-clicking the iPhoto sidebar and selecting New Slideshow. Alternatively, you can create an empty slideshow and drag in the pictures to be included later on. In the following screen, you’ll be able to adapt your slideshow to your specific needs, by selecting a slideshow theme and music, and by finetweaking the slideshow effects in the settings. Bakari Chavanu wrote an in-depth guide on creating quick and attracting Slideshows in iPhoto ’11.

Once you’re satisfied with the result, press the Export button at the bottom of your screen. To ensure a decent quality, select either ‘Large’ or ‘Display’ from the list of sizes. Make you’ve enabled ‘Automatically send slideshow to iTunes’ and press Export. Depending on the size of your slideshow this part of the process may take some time. When it’s done, your slideshow should be listed in iTunes, under Movies. If not, you can drag and drop it in manually. By default, the slideshow is located in Home -> Pictures -> iPhoto Slideshows.

If you haven’t already enabled iTunes Home Sharing, do so now. Read the first part of this article for the necessary steps. With Home Sharing enabled, and having signed on with the same Apple ID on your computer and your Apple TV, you’ll be able to find the slideshow you exported on your Apple TV. Simply select ‘Computers’ from the Apple TV home screen, and you’ll find the exported iPhoto slideshow in the Movies subdirectory.

3. Mirror your Computer’s Screen on your Apple TV

At the start of the article, we argued that most computer screens are too small to comfortable watch pictures on when you have guests over. However, if you’re able to mirror your computer screen to your television set, you may circumvent this problem altogether.

Later generation Apple computers support AirPlay mirroring, signified by the AirPlay icon in the Mac OS X menu bar. A complete list of Apple computers that support AirPlay mirroring can be found at this Apple support article. Read more on Airplay in What’s AirPlay, And How To Use It In Mac OS X Mountain Lion.

Just select your Apple TV from the AirPlay icon to mirror your computer screen on the big screen. This done, you can show your pictures as you normally would on your computer, but with more display inches at your disposal.

How do you usually show off your pictures to the guests you have over? Drop a line in the comments section below the article!

The post How To View An iPhoto Slideshow On Your Apple TV appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Apart from a handheld console like the PlayStation Vita, your tablet or smartphone is probably the best way to game, and keep yourself entertained on the road. After all, a very decent-sized chunk of the iOS app store is filled with games. Some of these games lend themselves better to the iPhone’s or iPad’s touchscreen interface than others. At least part of Angry Birds‘ and Temple Run‘s success stems from their intuitive integration with the iPhone and iPad touch screen interface.

If you want to play more serious games, whether they are arcades or first person shooters, you’ll probably find the touch screen controls lacking. If so, it’s time to start looking at iOS gaming accessories – physical joysticks and gamepads – to augment your gaming experience.

1. Add Joysticks To Your iPhone Or iPad

The simplest way to tackle this problem is to add joysticks to your iOS device. These are simple contraptions that are placed on your device’s screen, directly above the virtual joystick you’d normally use. Tilting the joystick simulates a dragging finger on your virtual joystick. The main advantage of these is that you can play blind without the worry of losing the virtual joystick at a hectic moment.

Due to their size, a lot of these joysticks are better suited for the iPad, rather than the iPhone. Some companies also sell smaller joysticks that are intended for use with the iPhone. You can find these joysticks by searching on eBay or Amazon for ‘iPad joysticks’ or ‘iPhone joysticks’, or checking your local electronics store.

One popular set of joysticks is the Fling joystick by Ten One Design, pictured above. Fling joysticks are available for the iPad and the iPhone.

2. Buy A Third-Party iOS Game Controller

Sticking a joystick to your iOS device is a solution worthy of MacGyver, but sometimes you need a more tailored and precise solution. In these cases, you can try your luck with an actual gamepad. These game controllers forego the touchscreen altogether, relying instead on regular buttons and joysticks.

However, there is a drawback. Unless you’ve jailbroken your device, you’ll only be able to control games that have explicitly built in support for these third-party controllers. A list of compatible games can usually be found on the manufacturer’s website.

A few of the game controllers are available. Pictured above is the Duo Gamer (starting at $32.99). The iMpulse controller (pre-order $25) is a more portable solution that can be used on a multitude of platforms and also happens to help you locate your keys (really). Another interesting product that’s on its way is the iControlPad 2, funded through Kickstarter.

3. Control Almost Any Game With Blutrol (Jailbreak) ($6.99)

If you have the luck of owning a jailbroken device, the above restriction of compatible games is largely lifted. In addition to the games that have built in compatibility, you’ll be able to use most games that use on-screen joysticks and buttons (like RoboKiller, displayed below).

Blutrol is a Cydia tweak that allows you to map these on-screen controls to a wide variety of hardware. Even if the game has no built-in support for these. At the moment of writing, Blutrol officially supports the following hardware:

• Bluetooth keyboards (supported keys: W, A, D, S, U, I, O, H, J,K, B, N, M, Space)
• DuoGamer
• iCade
• iControlPad
• iMpulse (with exception of the shoulder buttons)
• PhoneJoy
• PS3 DualShock Controller
• Wii Remote (a.k.a. Wiimote)
• Zeemote JS1

That’s right! In addition to your run-of-the-mill third-party gamepads, Blutrol also allows you to control your iPhone or iPad using the Wiimote or PlayStation 3 controller! An up-to-date list of supported hardware and usage instructions can be found on Blutrol’s Cydia page.

3.1 Installing Blutrol

To install Blutrol on your jailbroken device, search for it in Cydia. The tweak costs $6.99, so you’ll need to set up a payment method for the Cydia Store if you haven’t done so already. Open the Blutrol app from your homescreen and follow any instructions to round up the installation.

If you’re unable to find Blutrol, go to Cydia -> More Package Sources and select BigBoss.

3.2 Adding Games

First, you’ll want to take a screenshot of the game you’re going to play, with the on-screen controls clearly visible. We’ll use this to align the controls inside Blutrol.

To add a game, tap the plus icon in the top right corner of your screen. Here, you’ll be able to select one of your installed apps, and the screenshot you took before. If you need to play the game in both portrait and landscape mode, you’ll need a screenshot for each.

Finishing up, tap the Add button under Controller Configuration and select the appropriate controller. You’ll be able to add controls for portrait or landscape mode. This will show you the screenshot you took earlier, and the controls of the selected gamepad. You’ll have to drag the buttons over to the on-screen controls, pinching to resize the controls as needed. Drag all unused controls away from the screenshot.

This is shown in the screenshot above for RoboKill and the PlayStation 3 controller. Repeat this process for other orientations, or controllers.

3.3 Connecting Your Controller

You’ll still need to connect your controller to your iOS device. For all except the PlayStation 3 controller, this is fairly easy. We’ll explain the process for the PlayStation 3 controller in more detail below.

In Blutrol, select the controller tab. Here you’ll have to select the controller you’re trying to connect. iOS-compatible controllers like Duo Gamer, iCade and iMpulse can be paired with your iOS device like usual, via Settings -> General -> Bluetooth.

To pair any of the other controllers, select the appropriate item from the list of controllers and tap connect. Follow Blutrol’s device-specific instructions. To pair with the Wii Remote, I had to press the red sync button below the battery cap and tap the device name when it showed up on my iPad. If you’ve configured your game(s), you’ll be able to start playing as soon as your device is connected.

3.4 Connecting Your PlayStation 3 Controller

If you want to connect your PlayStation 3 controller to your iPhone or iPad, we’ll have to throw in an extra step. By default, your iOS device won’t detect your PlayStation 3 controller. To get it to work, you’ll have to store your iOS device’s Bluetooth address in your controller (this is easier than it sounds).

If you’re using a Mac OS X computer, download SixPair Tool. With the application running, connect both your iOS device and your PlayStation 3 controller to your computer over USB. A button will become available to pair your controller to your iOS device. After pairing the controller with your iPad, go back to Blutrol and follow the usual process.

If you’re using a Windows computer, download and install Sixaxis Pair Tool. Connect your PlayStation 3 remote to your computer using the USB cable, and run the application. You’ll have to manually input the bluetooth address of your iOS device. If you’re using Windows 8, you should run the application as Administrator and possibly in compatibility mode.

You can find the Bluetooth address on your iPhone or iPad. With your iOS device’s Bluetooth enabled, go to Settings -> General -> About. Near the bottom of your screen, you’ll find the Bluetooth address.

What controller are you going to use for your iOS device, and what games do you want to play with it? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below the article.

The post How To Hook Up a Game Controller To Your iPad appeared first on MakeUseOf.

A big part of the iOS app ecosystem consists of paid apps, more so than its Android counterpart, the Google Play store. In this way, iOS is much like Mac OS X; it’s very common to shell out a few bucks for software now and again.

Of course, you don’t have to cough up a lot of money to find great free video player apps for your phone or tablet. Personally, I don’t mind paying the extra money for an exceptional application, but a lot of my mobile needs are already met by free applications. The same goes for video playback. Although the most popular of these applications are paid, there are some really great free video player alternatives as well.

Here, we’ll show you how to meet your video player demands with exclusively free iOS apps.

OPlayer Lite / OPlayerHD Lite

OPlayer has been covered on MakeUseOf before, first appearing in Nancy Messieh’s article on How To Watch Almost Any Type of Video On Your iPhone, iPad & iPod Touch. It was also covered in my article detailing The Top Free Ways To Stream Video From Your Computer To Your Mobile Or Tablet. There’s a reason for this; OPlayer is a really great app, and one of the best free video player apps available for iOS devices.

OPlayer can be used as a standard video player, by transferring files from your computer to your device using iTunes. Alternatively, you can transfer your video files over a wireless network, or using an FTP client. If you don’t want to watch videos hosted locally on your iPad, that’s fine too. OPlayer is able to handle video streams over HTTP, RTSP, MMS, FTP and SAMBA shares.

Over the entire line, OPlayer offers great video compatibility, effortlessly handling most types of video.

The free (lite) version of OPlayer shows a non-intrusive text ad in its menus. You can download OPlayer Lite for your iPhone, or OPlayerHD Lite for your iPad.

RockPlayer2

Another quality video app is RockPlayer2. In its latest iteration, RockPlayer2 implements support for streaming channels, but the app is still best suited for playing local video files. You’ll have to transfer your videos to your iPhone or iPad using iTunes file transfer, HTTP, FTP or WebDAV. One of the most interesting features of RockPlayer2 is RockShare, which allows you to effortlessly share videos between compatible devices.

All in all, RockPlayer2 is a more than decent free video player, sporting support for a wide variety of video files. However, its support for h.264 (often encountered in MP4 and MKV containers) is less than spotless and could be much improved.

RockPlayer2 is available for free as an ad-supported universal app for the iPhone and iPad. Ridding the application from its ads is possible through an in-app purchase of just under five bucks.

AirPlayit / AirPlayit HD

If you don’t plan to store your video library on your iPad, you should definitely take a look at AirPlayit. It’s one of the best and most effortless ways to stream videos from your desktop computer to your iPhone or iPad. Just download and install a small server application on your desktop computer, select the folders you wish to share over your network, and you’re good to go.

This server application is freely available for both Windows and Mac OS X computers on the Air Playit website.

If you’re going offline, you can take a fair amount of video files with you. Supported files can be downloaded to your iPhone or iPad immediately. However, AirPlayit is also capable of converting incompatible files for you; using live conversion (while you’re streaming the videos to your iPad) or offline conversion (if you want to take incompatible video files with you on the road).

PlayerXtreme (iPad)

One of my favorite video players for the iPad is PlayerXtreme. The free version comes with a wealth of features, including playback support for a great many types of video files. It also flawlessly plays h.264 video files. A full overview of the supported file types is available on the PlayerXtreme iTunes page.

Using the free version of PlayerXtreme, you’ll have to transfer your video files to your iPhone or iPad using iTunes. In-app upgrades (each at USD 0.99) allow you to unlock wireless video transfers, subtitle support, audio boosting, network drives, and more.

VLC Media Player (Cydia)

The VLC Media Player app for the iPhone and iPad was previously available through the app store, but was thrown out due to licensing incompatibilities. The good news that if you’ve jailbroken your iOS device, VLC Media Player can still be installed using Cydia.

The VLC app is rather basic, but supports a wide variety of video types. The biggest downside is that you’ll have to transfer your video files to your iPhone or iPad using SSH. To find out how, read how to configure your own iPad FTP server on a Jailbroken device.

To install the app, just search for VLC Media Player on Cydia. It’s listed by ZodTTD’s repository. If you don’t get any results, add the ZodTTD repo via Manage -> Sources -> More Package Sources.

What free video player apps do you use to play back videos on your iPhone or iPad? Drop a line in the comments section below the article!

The post What Are The Best Free Video Player Apps For iPhone/iPad? appeared first on MakeUseOf.